


Roughing It in Erebus

by gloss



Category: due South
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Canadiana, Getting Back Together, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Mystery, Post-Break Up, Rescue, haunted igloos, orphic mysteries, post-cotw, the franklin expedition, the idea of north
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 12:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10876683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: "Something has him," Bob said. "She has turned his heart to ice.""Impossible," Ray replied. "Fraser doesn't have a heart.""You don't believe that."Bob visits Chicago again to enlist Ray's help in rescuing Fraser.





	Roughing It in Erebus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jiokra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/gifts).



> I am very grateful to G. and O. for help, brainstorming, and handholding.

> "A friend is someone who won't stop until he finds you, and brings you home." \-- Bob Fraser, in "Manhunt" (1x03)

The night before he left Canada for good, Ray blew Fraser one last time. This had never been a problem for them; even when they couldn't stand to speak to each other, even when they were so far out of synch as to be antipodean, their bodies were copacetic.

Fraser inhaled, his belly hollowing, when Ray rubbed his face against the rise of one pelvic bone. His skin was soft, the heat of his erection unmistakable. Ray suspected that Fraser wasn't too happy about still getting turned on like this -- something about the treachery of the physical -- but maybe that was ungenerous of him. Maybe Fraser grouped erections and orgasms with other physical necessities, like good nutrition and fresh air, plenty of exercise and well-practiced hygiene.

In that case, Ray's mouth was just as good as Fraser's own hand, or a bar of soap, or a brisk morning dip in a snowmelt-swollen river.

Ray thought otherwise. Ray thought that Fraser's body was miraculous, a goddamn wonderland, terra freaking nova. His mouth ached to form itself around Fraser's big, beautiful cock; his hands itched to rove over Fraser's broad shoulders and gorgeous ass. Ray was a goner, is what he was getting at. Even now, still, he was on his knees, mouth watering.

Fraser cupped the back of Ray's head, strong fingers and clean nails in the rat's nest that Ray's hair had become. His thumb absently stroked Ray's cheek. When he came, it was with a long, undulating sigh that rippled and filled Ray up.

Ray sat back on his knees, swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and considered spitting.

But that would just lead to another argument, another pointless trip on the world's saddest, creakiest merry go round, and he'd end up having to clean it up.

So he swallowed, shook out the pins and needles from his hand, and said, "still got it."

Fraser's cheeks were flushed. "You should stand up."

"I'm good."

"That can't be comfortable. Your knees, Ray --"

Ray squinted in the opposite direction. "Said I'm good. Like it down here. Maybe I'll stay down here."

"As you wish," Fraser said, buttoning up his trousers and smoothing down his shirt-tails.

*

So maybe Ray missed some parts, aspects you could say, about life up there. That was all well and good, he'd made his choice and Fraser had made his and there wasn't any going back, He wasn't a welsher, end of story.

When Ray came home after a long shift to find an old Mountie sitting on his couch and knitting, then, all he could do was let his jacket fall out of his hand and laugh his ass off.

"This is a good one," he said. "Who put you up to this?"

He actually couldn't think of anyone who'd go to the trouble of pranking him. _That_ was a thought for the Don't Go There, Ever File.

"Hello, Yank," the Mountie said and set aside his knitting. It was white, and lace, and beyond that Ray had no idea what it was.

"Oh, no, no, don't let me interrupt you," Ray said, retrieving his jacket and hanging it up. ( _Easier to do something now_ , he still heard Fraser say every single time, _than to put it off for later_.) "Please, by all means, keep up with your needlework."

"I've come to you on a very sensitive mission."

"All right," Ray said. He perched on the edge of his little breakfast table, one leg swinging. "Hit me, then we'll discuss the breaking and entering and --" He squinted at the coffee table. "Did you help yourself to a _sandwich_?"

The Mountie looked only slightly abashed. "I tried, but alas."

"Alas what?"

"That is not germane to the case," he replied. "What _is_ germane, Detective, is that --"

"Wait, wait." Ray held up his hand. "Who _are_ you, anyway?"

"Sergeant Robert Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, late of the M-division, Ross River detachment."

"Ha, that's a funny joke, 'cause I could've sworn you just claimed to be Robert Fraser." Ray's leg slowed, then stopped, its swing. He leaned in a little. The Mountie's face was vaguely familiar. "You know, Robert Fraser, who's dead, who's been dead a long time now, on the trail of whose killers his only begotten son..."

He waved his hand. "Yes, yes, I've heard the pseudo-Homeric preamble more than enough times. I am Robert Fraser, and --"

Laughing, delighted, Ray clapped his hands so loudly that the Mountie jumped. His knitting slithered to the floor. "This is _great_! Are you telling me all this time poor Fraser only _thought_ his dad was dead?"

"No, son," the Mountie said. He reached down and picked up his knitting, checked the needles, then looked back up. "I'm quite dead. Very dead."

"Dead's like pregnant," Ray said. "You either are or you're not. There's no, whaddayacallit, _degrees_ of it."

"As a doornail, then."

"Uh-huh," Ray said, standing up. "Sounds goofy. I'm gonna have a beer, you want one?" He was rummaging in the refrigerator's crisper -- as if vegetables would ever be stored in there, he was a _bachelor_ again, untethered from the world's healthiest man -- when a light, damp chill passed across the back of his neck.

That was odd, considering he was _facing_ the fridge. 

When he straightened up and shut the door, there was the Mountie, standing against the kitchen counter. He wasn't a big man -- Ray's experience of male Mounties was admittedly fairly limited, but he expected them to be bigger, more strapping, built on the lines of a Fraser or Turnbull. This guy was more like Ray's own size.

"I assure you, I fall well within the averages both for Canadian men in general and Mounties, specifically."

Ray twisted the bottle in his grip. "You reading my mind there?"

"Ah," the old guy said. "No, though I can see how you might make that mistake. No, I merely observed the path travelled by your gaze, up and down my frame, before drifting away to the middle distance, as if you were comparing me to a mental image of someone else."

"Oh, merely that, huh?"

"Yank," the Mountie said. "I'm afraid we don't have much time for this shilly-sallying."

"Ray," Ray said. "My name's Ray, don't call me 'Yank', that's just, you know. Demoralizing. Depersonalizing. Something."

"Dehumanizing?"

"Yeah, yeah, that, too." Ray finally got the cap off the bottle and took a long sip. "So, Mr. Dead As a Doornail --"

"Fraser, call me --"

Ray laughed, but he felt very far from happy. "I ain't calling you that."

"Bob, then." The Mountie stuck out his hand.

"Bob, okay." Ray tried to shake on it, but his hand went right through Bob's. In its wake, he felt that same chilly prickle. "Uh. What the fuck, Bob?"

"I told you, son, try to keep up. I'm a ghost."

Ray had about a million responses to that, but as he opened his mouth, the Mountie -- _Bob_ , what ghost was seriously named "Bob"? -- startled and looked over his shoulder. 

All Ray could see behind him was the pantry, but the Mountie hunched up his shoulders, tipped his hat down over his face, and whispered urgently: "I'll be in touch, Yank. Ray, that is. Remember: only you can help!"

*

"No one's looking for you," she said to Fraser. She rattled like diamonds and ice and moved through shadows and depths.

"I expect not, no."

"You're not surprised?"

"No," he said. "You seem to be, however."

*

That ghostly visit was strange, just about the most exciting thing to happen to Ray since he got back. That fact in itself was fairly sad, given that he was a detective frequently tasked with bringing in cold-hearted killers and remorseless smugglers. Somehow, however, the job just didn't seem to offer the thrills that it used to. He'd had an hourlong stand-off with one of the Donnelly brothers while they both stood up to their waists in industrial vats of sugar icing; he'd tackled a black widow from behind on her way down the aisle for the seventeenth time; he'd even busted up a gang of low-level office supplies thieves who were operating as bicycle couriers.

But all that got shrugs from him. Soon as the adrenaline drained away, he was still here, working alone, still Ray.

He wasn't exactly dating these days, either. He was certainly not hermiting, however. He'd made that mistake after his break-up with Stella. This time -- and how fucking pathetic and tragic and even _ba_ -thetic (that was a Fraser word, right there) was it that he was right back where he'd been just before he'd met Fraser? The dumped and solitary, jumping out of his skin with boredom and sheer frustration at still being nothing more than _himself_?

He was trying, as he told his parents, mostly to get them off his back, to keep a toe in the dating pool. He had to at least seem to make the effort, if only to shut up his own internal stream of relentless criticism.

Still, he didn't like it. The dating, that is -- not that he'd gotten very far toward dating anyone. He was still in the "looking" stage. As in, every so often he'd go out to a bar and then look at himself in the mirror, wonder what the hell he thought he was trying to accomplish, then head home.

He was at the far corner of the bar, nursing an overpriced whiskey sour when Bob the Dead Mountie showed up again. There was a Bears game on, but this was a gay bar, so instead there was a reality show about beautiful people dumped in the tropics and forced to survive. (If he'd just waited a couple years, he wouldn't have needed to have his Franklin adventure; he could have gone on one of these shows.)

"Hello," Bob said. He was out of uniform this time; his silvery hair looked freshly combed, his paunchy cheek freshly shaven. He sported a white Hanes T and what looked (and sounded) like leather pants. "Sorry about last time."

"What are you wearing?"

"Oh!" Bob smiled, looking _very_ pleased with himself, as he leaned back on the bar stool next to Ray to show off. Yes, those were snug black leather trousers and an admittedly great pair of motorcycle boots, nice enough that Ray would not be averse to owning them. "Trying to blend in, what do you think?"

"I think you're insane," Ray said.

"You're the one talking to a ghost, m'boy."

"So people can see you?" Ray asked, holding his drink in front of his mouth.

"No, not without some effort on my part. Why?"

Ray shook his head, then shook it again. "So you're blending in, even though only I can see you? That how this works?"

Bob tapped his temple and nodded. "All about playing the part."

"The part of what?"

"Yes," Bob said, as if that meant anything at all. His mood switched then, and he grew intent and alert. "Tell me, did you get my messages?"

"Your what now?"

"Three messages, three stories," Bob said impatiently. He tried to grab Ray's arm, but his hand passed through. "Diamonds, fingers, the map and name Victoria."

"That's four."

"The map had the name on it."

"Never saw it, sorry." Ray was not very responsible with his mail. He finished his drink. "Someone _did_ leave a prank rubber finger, a severed one, on my desk at work."

"Yes, yes!" Bob was shouting as he strode through the bar. Ray grabbed his jacket and hurried to catch up. "That was one!"

Outside, Boystown was bright and loud. Bob moved rapidly -- you could almost say _inhumanly_ \-- and Ray was a little breathless by the time he caught up.

"Something has him," Bob said. "She has turned his heart to ice."

"Impossible," Ray replied. "Fraser doesn't have a heart."

"You don't believe that."

"You don't know _what_ I believe, old man." Ray frowned and slowed down. "Unless you do? What number am I thinking of right now?"

"Turtles. You're thinking about turtles. That was a trick question."

"Shee-it," Ray breathed. 

"I can't read your thoughts. You're just very predictable."

"Obnoxious knowitalls come thick and fast in your family, huh?"

Bob did not reply. They were in Ray's apartment building now, climbing the stairs two at a time like the devil himself was on their tail.

Inside the apartment, Bob hauled on a heavy fur coat and jammed an equally hairy ushanka down onto his head. Bundled up like this, he looked for all the world like a small, very intelligent and easily amused bear. 

"Shall we?" he asked, opening the sliding door to Ray's tiny, ugly balcony.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

Behind Bob, overlaying the loud, antic Chicago night, there were curlicues of blowing snow and a sense of openness. The longer Ray looked, the brighter that sense grew, and the more distantly Chicago receded.

"Come along, no time to waste," Bob said, handing Ray a parka. A regular kind, thank God, no ancient fur or anything.

"Lead the way, then, Mr. Tumnus," Ray said, barely managing to close the balcony door before they were on the tundra and utterly transported.

They hiked easily for a long while. It seemed to Ray unfair, however, that they had to hike at all.

"Exertion, son. It's good for the soul." Bob looked back and winked. "Take it from me, I should know."

"Haha," Ray said. "Why's the afterlife look like the Territories? Shouldn't it be warmer? Either balmy or roasty-toasty?"

"All part of the process," Bob said vaguely.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I honestly don't know," Bob admitted. "I just know it to be true."

*

Fraser did make a few perfunctory escape attempts. He was underdressed and ill-equipped, but it seemed that he was expected to try, so try he did. Whatever direction he took when he left the igloo, each time he eventually crested a ridge and found himself just meters from the same igloo. He was, quite literally, walking in circles. In spheres, even. He circumnavigated this tiny globe eight times, always to the same result.

He stopped trying after that. He couldn't leave and he had nowhere _to_ go.

*

"You said there were three messages," Ray said as they continued to tramp through the snow. "Tell me about 'em."

"All right," Bob said. "What do you know about the Franklin Expedition?"

Ray groaned and banged his fist against his forehead, as if that would pummel away the thoughts and memories. "I don't wanna talk about it."

The hand of Franklin, now there was a monkey's paw if ever there was one. Whole damn primate _arm_ , really.

"Yet talk we shall," Bob said serenely, either not noticing Ray's anger or, more likely, not caring about it. "They were gone for nearly three years, you know, before alarm really took hold."

"Three years?"

"Yes, time worked differently then."

"Like how space is different?"

Bob blinked, considering that, then nodded slowly. "Yes, in fact."

"How was it different? Gooey? Ran backwards? What kind of different we talking?"

"Standardization, son. Railroads and telegraphs required a great deal of coordination and standardization. With it, a lot of strangeness went out of the world. Mystery."

Ray nodded. "Sure, 'mystery'. Also smallpox. Polio. Shit like that."

"Indeed." Bob planted his hands on his hips and looked around. "Now. Where was I?"

"Three years lost."

"Yes." Bob strode past the fire, his boots creaking, the snow crunching. Ray followed and peered over his shoulder.

Where there had been yet more snow, extending out in every direction, there was now a black, welling area of open water, full of slush and larger chunks of ice. As they watched, two skeletal figures, the mere suggestions, sketches or faded blueprints, of old-fashioned ships, took shape. After a moment of bobbing on the water, they went still and ice grew up around them. Eventually, the ice started to move, carrying the ships like twigs; they crumpled up, then began to sink. 

"The Admiralty was dutybound, of course, to maintain the appearance of a search," Bob said. "But it was Frankin's wife, Lady Jane, who proved to be the true driving force. She was indefatigable, someone to be reckoned with."

As the ships sank, their lines glowed a dull white, so they were still visible, even as they shrank in the descent.

"She would stop at nothing to find her husband -- and along the way, that meant she would find out what happened to him."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ray turned away from the shore, but every time he blinked, he could still see the broken ships twinkling as they drowned. "Find her husband, that's the same as find out what happened."

"Is it?" Bob asked. He was still looking out at the sea. Some ice was gathering on his eyelashes and at the tip of his nose. "Information and the destiny of a soul, seems fairly different to me."

"It's the same thing!" Ray stomped a little way downwind. "Information gets you the soul, that's how it works!"

"I'd thank you not to shout," Bob said.

"WHY NOT?" Ray whirled around, arms spread, toes spraying up pebbles and ice chunks. "No one can hear us! There's no one here! We're not even here!"

"And yet," Bob said, "I'd appreciate the courtesy."

Ray dropped his arms to his sides; all the fight whooshed out of him, twice as fast as those ships sank to their doom, just as fast as the snow was falling now. "All right," he said, unable to keep the sullenness from his tone. "No shouting."

"Thank you," Bob said. He kicked at the image of the sea, took a breath and squared his shoulders, then continued his story.

"In the autumn of 1849, a small child named Anna Coppin had a dream," Bob said. "Her little sister Weezy, dead for a few years, came to visit and showed her something beautiful."

"A little kid ghost?" Ray said.

Bob nodded.

"God, that's sad."

"I'd think a ghost at any age would be -- but no matter." Bob cleared his throat. "Anna saw a place she, the daughter of a shipyard-master, had never seen: a vast open wilderness, white with drifting snow, below an upended bowl of glittering stars."

"The North," Ray said for him. "It was the North."

"Yes, precisely." Bob said it so warmly, as if both surprised and pleased, that Ray grinned for a moment. "Now, the idea of North is one that --" He shook his head and waved off that thought. "That's a tale for another time. What matters right now is that little Weezy saw the Franklin ships. Saw them caught in the packed-up ice, saw the men suffering, saw it all. What's more, she, clever girl, was able to discern where they were. And pass that on to Anna."

"All in a dream," Ray said flatly. "Little kid has too much porridge, dreams about her dead sis and John and the boys? Sure."

"Anna wrote it all down, courtesy of Weezy, on the wall of her room. The map, Boothia, King William's Island, and the time. The _time_ , Ray."

"Yeah, good dream, complete with what's it called, lateral longitude?"

Bob's gaze ticked over briefly. "Yes, that was how they calculated the position of the ships, given that the Coppin family lived on Greenwich Mean, and --"

"See, standardization!" Ray crowed. "Not so bad, is it?"

"When word of all this reached Mrs. Franklin, you can imagine the --"

"Disbelief?"

"Excitement, son." Bob clapped Ray on the shoulder. "The _excitement_."

"A ghost came here," Ray said.

"This place," Bob said, staring out to the sky. "The North, I mean. The boundaries between life and death are more porous here. Easily traversed."

"No immigration laws?" Ray suggested.

"None." Bob inclined his head. "None beyond the obvious, but, as you're here, we can see that even that is easily bent."

"Creepy," Ray said.

"Ever iced a cake, son? Not with that sticky goop, the buttercream travesty, but with a glaze? You pour it over the freshly-baked cake while the liquid's still hot/ It fills up all the air holes and pockmarks on the surface, then spreads, sets, and hardens into something beautiful."

"Well, now I'm hungry," Ray complained. "We're doing pastry class why?"

"That's what this is. Where we are. It overlays your world, wells up between land and sea, air and earth, fills up all the emptiness."

"Uh-huh." Ray licked his lips, still picturing a nice orange bundt cake. "Wait. Nothing's between land and sea, it's just...there."

"Exactly," Bob said. He stooped down and cleared off snow on the ground between them. They were, it seems, walking over ice that was several feet thick.

Ray drew back, though of course he couldn't _not_ step on the ground. "This is one of those ice fields?"

"No, no, not at all."

"No cracks and crevasses, then?" He could not shake the memory of cold, penetrating fear of being stuck down the crevasse, facing Fraser, knowing he was about to die.

Bob looked up at him. "Some, admittedly, but no danger to you. _Look_."

Ray dropped to one knee to look. He tried, he really tried, to see what Bob was indicating. All he could make out, however, was ice. Meters of it, trapped bubbles and wavering uneven layers like old windowpanes. Then he blinked and there it was, the Sears Tower. Observation deck and all, just under his hand. He looked to the side, saw a space-needle-thing somehow taller than the Sears Tower, and an expanse of lake.

"Kinda looks like Toronto," Ray said.

"Happens," Bob said, helping him up. "But you see, that's where we are. Everywhere. Nowhere. In-between."

Ray brushed the snow off his knees and stamped his feet. "We're nowhere."

"Yes."

"Great."

On they walked, ambling along side by side as the snow drifted down. Sometimes it was cold and Ray was exhausted; others, when he remembered they were nowhere, he was plenty warm and energetic.

"Okay, second story," he said eventually. "Fingers."

"Sedna was an ordinary Inuk, who realized an extraordinary fate."

"I'd imagine so, since we're telling stories about her," Ray said.

"Her father had no use for her, so he pretended to bring her on a hunting trip. When they reached open waters, he pushed her overboard."

"Bastard."

"Yes, as a matter of fact. A nasty piece of work. Though, of course, without his selfish cruelty, we wouldn't have...." Bob adjusted his hat. "Well, I can't pursue _that_ particular stream of thought. That way lie profound and longstanding questions of free will and predestination that are far beyond my grasp --"

"You're a ghost," Ray reminded him. "Isn't that line of thought what you guys live for?" Bob winced at that, so Ray added, quickly, "so to speak, that is."

"Fraser used to say we choose our destiny," Ray said when they'd both been quiet for an uncomfortably long time. "Even if we have to bushwhack our way to the right path, it's our choice."

"Hmm," Bob said. "Strange boy, my Benton."

"Yeah," Ray said. He sighed and stuck his hands into his pockets. "Tell me about it. Or don't, actually. Finish your story."

"She grabbed the edge of his kayak, desperate to hang on, to _live_. He chopped at her hands, cut off her fingers, kicked her body into the sea."

Ray's stomach flip-flopped and he had to swallow against an upsurge of bile. "Christ, Bob."

"Her fingers wiggled on their own. Her hair streamed out. Her fingers spun and spun, became walruses and seals, her hair spread dark in the frigid water, to feed the benthic fish."

"She died, Bob."

"No. She _transformed_. Became the life of the sea, married it, ruled it, embodied it."

"That's two messages," Ray said. "'Victoria' and the ghost kid, and Sedna's fingers. What was the third?"

Bob handed him a glossy leaflet. _Ekati Diamond Mine_ , it read, _now open and enriching the NWT like never before!_

"I heard of this place," Ray said, balling it up and sticking it in his pocket. "Gonna destroy the Great Slave basin and ruin everything, Fraser said." He stopped and waved his hand. "Is that who has him? Diamond miners?"

Bob shrugged. "I don't think so, though I wouldn't be surprised if they were involved with the same darker forces." He handed Ray the leaflet again; it was unlined, fresh and new looking. This place was _annoying_. "'She cried so hard, her tears fell like diamonds...' That's the message."

"The Snow Queen?" Ray asked, and then took a step back, because where in the hell did _that_ come from?

"A boy and a girl are bosom friends, until the boy's carried away by the Snow Queen," Bob recited. "His little friend cried and cried and swore to retrieve him. When she found him, he was trapped by eternity, his heart full of ice. But she rescued him, and in shock, the Snow Queen cried diamonds." He caught Ray's eye and smiled apologetically. "Couldn't figure how to communicate that to you, so I used the leaflet."

"Yeah, I tossed it," Ray said. "Sorry."

"Understandable," Bob replied. "You're here now, that's what matters."

"I'm nowhere."

"Yes."

"With a ghost."

"Again, yes. Stating the obvious, is that something you picked up from my son, or was it always a hobby?"

"Hey!" Ray had to hurry to catch up as Bob marched away. "No need to get testy."

"I'm sorry," Bob said. "This is all very tiring. And I'm worried, Detective. Ray. Son."

"About Fraser? He'll be fine. He's always fine."

"He --" Bob bit his lip. "These stories, what do they have in common, do you think?"

Ray thought it about it for a long while as they hiked onward. "They're all real sad and pretty gruesome."

"Perseverance," Bob said. "Unflinching dedication to goal. Stick-to-itiveness."

"Yeah, yeah. Mounties always get their man, they never give up, they're the best, yay Mounties."

"Please, Ray," Bob said. "Don't --"

Ray threw up his hands. " _Fine_. Perseverance that sticks to the ribs, that's the theme?"

"Endurance without friction, without challenge, without spark, why, that's nothing to be proud of. That's just something inert and dead."

"Permafrost, like," Ray said.

"Yes." Bob clasped Ray's shoulder and shook him, hard, as if Ray were asleep. "That's where you come in."

"I don't get it."

"Neither do I," Bob admitted. "All these stories, why do we keep telling them? About getting lost, frozen up, rejected? Transformed. We need to get it right."

Ray opened his mouth. His breath emerged in a cloud, a hovering, physical thing.

" _You_ need to get it right," Bob said. 

*

There was no time to be had, nor space, not in any comprehensible sense, yet on they hiked.

"Tell me, what prised the two of you apart?"

"Prised?" Ray asked.

"Context, detective. You know what I meant."

"Yeah, well, you're the all-knowing ghosty spirit there, you tell me."

Bob stared into the fire. "The last thing I knew, the two of you were thick as thieves and only getting closer. Caught Muldoon, stopped the Bolt insanity, you were riding high."

"Yeah? Where were you after?"

"I was...absent."

"Heavy afterlife caseload, huh?"

"No. I'd retired, for good this time. Joined my wife on the distant shore and didn't, couldn't, look back." Half his mouth tilted up in a wry smile. "There's no communication from there."

"Wait," Ray said and gripped his knees. "Are you trying to tell me there's...territories? Of heaven? Different areas and such?"

"We're nowhere near heaven at the moment, Ray." Bob sounded sad, to be sure, but regretful, too, as if he wished he had better news for Ray.

"But you're saying that you _were_? When me and Fraser were, so to speak, shacking up?"

"I believe so, yes."

Ray kicked at the snow, which succeeded only in spraying the fire, making it momentarily gutter and sizzle. "Why'd you come back, man? Who leaves heaven?"

"I told you why. Benton."

"No, no, I _know_ that --" Ray groaned in frustration. What was he supposed to say? "So if this ain't heaven, where are we?"

Bob warmed his hands over the fire. "It doesn't have a name, not among us. You, though, you people --"

"Who people?"

Bob smiled. "The living. You have a lot of names for it. Bardo, limbo, the restless zone. Adlivun and Omiktu. _Erebus_." He lifted the pot out of the fire and turned the contents over with a spoon. "Dinner's ready."

"Hold up there," Ray said. "One thing I know is, you don't eat in magic places. That's just like lesson number one. Numero uno remedial Fodor's Guide to Fairyland."

Bob shrugged. "All right, more for me, then."

"You're not gonna argue?" Ray was primed for a good argument. This was the sort of thing Fraser would've bitten into and held on and never let go of. _You're being foolish, Ray. Societies as disparate as the Inuit, the Aborigines of Australia, and the needlewomen of downtown Bishkek --_

_What's Bishkek?_

_The capital of Kyrgyzstan._

_Right, of course, how could I possibly have forgotten?_

But Bob shrugged, chewing his beans with relish, then swallowing. "Why argue? You're wrong, I'm right, I get more beans. Works for me."

"Give me that --" Ray grabbed the stick holding the pot and dug out a good spoonful of beans for himself. They were delicious, thick and sweet, a little smoky. "If I'm cursed by these, it's on your Mountie head."

"Fair enough," Bob said, and leaned over to help himself to another spoonful.

They shared the rest in silence. When the fire had died down and they were nice and full, Bob patted Ray's knee and said, "Up and at 'em."

"What?" Ray was half-asleep, maybe more.

"Ground to cover, detective. Let's go."

They hiked on, and on. Bob refused to let the subject of Fraser and Ray's breakup rest. He asked, as the hike lengthened, in about twenty different ways that Ray dodged, refused, and ignored.

Finally, Bob said, "sexual incompatibility, was it?"

"Not talking about this," Ray said.

"Benton's no cold fish, you know. Not deep down, you just have to know how to...stoke the fires, let's say."

Ray groaned. "No! Not talking about it."

"As you wish," Bob said. "However --"

Ray couldn't get the memory of that final blow job out of his head. He knew Bob couldn't read his mind, but maybe, here, he could? In that case, the ghost was getting a whole 70-mm Cinerama Surround-Sound glorious Technicolor replay of the act.

"We were very compatible!" Ray shouted. "Compatible? You wanna talk _compatible_ , dead guy?"

Bob frowned and his Adam's apple bobbed over the high collar of his uniform. "On second thought, no, not particularly."

"Good. Because believe me, _that_ was never the problem." Ray elbowed past Bob and quickened his pace. The faster he walked, he'd have liked to believe, the sooner the subject could be left behind.

"Glad to hear it," Bob said, matching his strides.

"Bet you are."

"I am."

"Good." Ray stopped short and bent over to grab a handful of snow. He packed it into a rough ball and threw it, hard as he could, at the nothingness before them. "Humanitarian and compassionate."

"What's that?" Bob asked.

"That was the problem," Ray said. His hands were freezing now, so he might as well make more snowballs and throw them away pointlessly. "Humanitarian and compassionate grounds. That was the only way I could stay here."

"I don't follow, son."

They were walking again, side by side. Bob passed two big, ridiculous fur mittens over and Ray put them on without protest.

US citizens could stay in Canada without a visa or other official permission for six months, so long as they didn't work. On the 178th day of their adventure, Fraser reminded Ray of this fact and asked what he intended to do.

Ray intended to stay here, thanks all the same. Fraser wouldn't dream of breaking the law, of course, especially not for the sake of, and this was a Fraser phrase if there ever was one, "his mere personal pleasure".

The only option, Fraser said, was to petition for Ray to become a Canadian permanent resident. Emigrate, good and proper, sponsored by upstanding citizen and civil servant Benton J. Fraser.

"He doesn't have a middle initial," Bob put in.

"Yeah, yeah, it just sounds better that way," Ray said, waving off the objection. "Stuffier and all."

"Indeed," Bob replied and let Ray continue.

The application, however, was guaranteed to be rejected, on account of them being homos. That was when Fraser had added, "but what is done, you see, is then _re-petition_ on grounds of hardship. It would be cruel to separate the couple, you see --"

"Us, you mean _us_ ," Ray had said. "The 'couple'."

"So the application would be resubmitted, asking that the gender issue of the sponsorship rejection be dropped on humanitarian and compassionate grounds."

That, in short, or in long, was the only way same-sex couples could legally be together in the dominion of Canada.

Bob nodded thoughtfully. "Byzantine bureaucracy, sounds exactly like Ottawa."

"Yeah," Ray said.

"Silly, of course," Bob continued, "but I suppose reasonable, given the language of existing legislation and such."

"Yeah, yeah, Fraser said all of that, too."

Bob stopped and squinted at Ray, reading his face for something. "And yet you're not angry with me for saying this?"

"Well, no, you're not my --" _Boyfriend_ , he almost said. _Partner_. "Anyway, you said it was silly. That's what matters. Fraser, he just told me the rules and expected me to go along with it."

"I see. Why didn't you?"

Ray _really_ needed to kick something now. "Because I don't want to be a charity case, maybe? Because it fucking sucks and hurts and stings like hell to have my, my, my whole _heart_ put in the hands of some asshole paper-pusher and then I have to go and beg them to indulge my big sad gay, pretty please?"

Bob was quiet for a bit, and then some more. "You wanted Benton to acknowledge that. The absurdity and the insult of it all."

Ray wheeled around and jabbed his finger toward Bob. "YES! That's all! A little, yeah, Ray, this is sure is stupid, haha, let's do it but we know it's dumb and mean.... Is that too much to ask?"

Bob sighed. "No, it's not. Of _Benton_ , however --"

"Yeah, of _him_ , it was way too much, it was asking for the goddamn godforsaken far side of the _moon_."

"We're here," Bob said in an entirely different tone. He sounded reverent, even awed, though Ray couldn't see very much different in the field ahead of them at all. There was more tundra and an ugly old igloo, the snow pocked and rotten, looking several seasons' old.

"Let's go, what're we waiting for?" Ray said, but Bob caught him by the elbow as he passed.

"I turn back here," he said. He grasped both of Ray's arms now. "Wish like hell I could accompany you, but the time for guidance is past."

"What the hell're you talking about?"

Bob embraced him, strongly, for a long time, before thumping Ray on the back. He handed him a heavy trail pack. "Good luck, Ray. Godspeed."

Ray's head ached suddenly, sour and tight, and his throat hurt. His eyes burned; when he blinked away the pain, Bob was gone, too.

He headed for the igloo.

Inside, the walls were hung with rotting hides. A man sat on the sleeping platform.

The figure, slumping shoulders and bowed head, was difficult to make out through the oily smoke.

Ray waved it away from his mouth and moved a little closer. "Fraser?"

The man turned, so slowly the motion could have been categorized as glacial, as something climatic or geological, far from human. Ray would know that profile anywhere; it was part of his consciousness now, star of his dreams and nightmares.

"Ray," Fraser said hoarsely. "Well, I'll be."

"C'mon, Fraser, we need to go."

Fraser looked down at his lap. He wore oilcloth trousers, old-fashioned and high-waisted, and a soft, threadbare long-sleeved undershirt. His boots were unlaced and his socks, mismatched. "Oh, no, Ray, there's nowhere for me to go."

Ray squatted and looked up at Fraser. He had bags under his eyes and he needed a haircut. Even on their adventure, Fraser's hair had been neatly trimmed at all times; Ray grew a Grizzly Adams beard, let his hair go nuts, but not Fraser. Never a strand out of place. Now, however, there were even a few threads of silver at his temples.

"Uh-huh," Ray said. "All right then."

"Kind of you to drop by," Fraser said after a long pause. It was close in here, hot in an uncomfortably _intimate_ sort of way, like how blood or other fluids are hot as they spill from the body, and _still_. So still, even though the fire seemed to be moving, it...wasn't. 

"Yeah, well." Ray bounced a little in his crouch. "You know me. Social kinda guy."

Fraser didn't smile at the admittedly weak joke. He looked away, squinting vaguely at the far wall. "But you should go, I think."

"Not without you," Ray said, as firmly as he could. All he wanted to do was get out of there. "You come with, I'm outta here like Vandermeer."

"Ah," Fraser said. "You see --"

There was no noise, nothing, but Fraser's eyes widened and something _changed_ inside the igloo. It was colder, suddenly, and when Ray looked down at the fire, it was just a small pile of black ash, as if it hadn't been lit for months.

Fraser reached out for Ray. His lips were drawn back over his teeth and the whites of his eyes showed all around. Ray reached to touch him, but then he realized Fraser was trying to push him away. Fraser shoved at him and whispered, " _Run_."

"Hell, no." Ray's heart, however, had other ideas, and it was racing, desperate to leap out his throat and get as far away as possible.

Rain, or ice, cascaded through the smoke vent hole, bouncing into the ash, filling up the place in an instant. Diamonds, it was showering diamonds.

Fraser convulsed, clawing at his chest, ripping open his undershirt and then his skin.

"Fraser!" Ray threw himself at Fraser, tackling him around the waist, wrestling his arms to his sides. Fraser thrashed under him, a guttural, unearthly moan rising out of his mouth like steam. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Fraser kept fighting him. His chest was opening before Ray's eyes, skin pulling apart, muscle unknitting, bone cracking open. It was sick, and enthralling, and _wrong_. There was very little blood, just a slow, reluctant ooze of something like oil. And then, as Fraser's breastbone separated from his ribs, there was his heart, the size of a fist, dark and sluggish, barely beating at all. The tissue was shot through with ice, studded with diamonds.

Ray needed to throw up. He needed to go blind and never see _that_ again. He needed a lot of things, but at the moment, he needed to get the fuck out of here. Doubled over, retching, he ran for it, dragging the thrashing Fraser behind him.

 

"I can't leave," Fraser muttered, over and over, as they made their way through the snow. Ray was leading, arm around Fraser's waist as Fraser leaned heavy as a bear against him. "Nowhere to go. You go, save yourself."

Ray just shook his head. "Nothing doing, Mr. Martyr Man, sorry."

It took several hours to reach a slight ridge, but on its far side, both the snow and the wind were far less intense. Ray hacked together a shitty-but-serviceable lean-to. It was nothing like what Fraser might have made (a Fraser in his right mind, that is), but it was all right. Maybe Ray _had_ learned something up here besides the full extent of his own capacity for failure and disappointment.

Next he got Fraser propped up in the shelter and melted some snow in one of his boots -- it was the biggest container available -- in order to clean Fraser up. He did the chest wound first, grimacing as he replaced the bandages. The water sluiced down Fraser's skin, bringing up goosebumps.

"Cold," Ray commented and the soft sigh Fraser made in response might have been a laugh. "Sorry."

"No, no," Fraser said. "It's all right."

"Lemme guess, you've had worse, you once had to wash out a head wound with beluga piss?"

Fraser frowned -- a new frown, different from the tension of pain and worry he'd been stuck in since Ray first saw him in the igloo. This frown was faintly baffled, a little concerned. "No. Well, yes, I have had worse --"

"Knew it," Ray said and sat back on his heels.

"-- but that's not what I was going to say."

"Oh?"

"It's cold but clean," Fraser said. "So thank you."

"Yeah," Ray replied, kneeling up to daub Fraser's face with a chunk of moss soaked in the water. "Yeah, you're welcome." 

Each swipe of the moss revealed more of the Fraser he knew, and remembered, and (if we're being honest here, and why not?) longed for, even now. 

Maybe Fraser wasn't being _revealed_ so much as created. Transformed. 

His broad cheekbones, the complicated geological colors of his eyes, his wide, pink lips: Fraser was appearing, moment by moment, as Ray worked.

When Ray was finished, there was still grime edging Fraser's collarbone and hiding below his ears, but otherwise, Fraser looked remarkably better.

"Like a million bucks (Canadian)," Ray said. "Even with the exchange rate, that's not bad. Not shabby, not at all."

"I can't leave." Fraser sounded genuinely apologetic about that fact.

Ray patted his shoulder. "Sure you can. You're Fraser, you can do anything."

Fraser blinked. "No, I literally _can't_."

"Literal-schmiteral," Ray said. "We'll talk about it later."

"There's no --"

"Hey, Fraser?"

Fraser took a deep breath. His chest rose; Ray couldn't help but watch it through Fraser's open shirt. "Yes, Ray?"

"Shut up, okay?"

"All right."

"Good. Okay, now, scoot forward --" Ray angled his way behind Fraser and tipped him forward at the waist. From here, Fraser's hair looked even worse, matted and greasy, tangled and clotted with god know what. "Close your eyes." He poured out the rest of the water over Fraser's head. "You all right?"

"Wet," Fraser said, voice muffled.

"That was the idea, yeah."

With his fingertips going numb, Ray combed out the worst of the snarls in Fraser's hair. Every so often, he pulled too hard, or guessed the wrong direction for a wave, and Fraser let him know it. Not with a whimper, let alone a yelp, but with a stiffness in his posture, an intake of breath, a rise in the angle of his shoulders. Ray removed pebbles and grit, thick clumps of oily ash, even a few sparkling chips of diamond.

He hadn't exactly thought about what it would be like to touch Fraser again. Not in so many words, never so consciously. All the same, he was surprised by how calm he was, how _reasonable_ all this felt. He didn't want to deck Fraser, he didn't want to hit a wall, he didn't want to yell or run or any of a thousand angry things he would've thought he'd need to do.

Instead, he was touching Fraser carefully, lightly, doing what needed to be done.

And Fraser was letting him, patient and quiet as ever.

"How you doing?" he asked when he needed to heat up more snow. He warmed his hands over the fire and rinsed them off as best he could.

"Tired," Fraser answered eventually.

"Yeah," Ray said. He wasn't sure what to do, whether they should press on or take their chances by resting here. He wasn't sure if that was allowed, even. You shouldn't eat in these places, so God knows what kind of sleep you'd have. The dreams alone could be deadly. "Me, too. How're you otherwise?"

Fraser touched his face, then the bandages on his chest, before looking at Ray. "Better, I believe."

"You don't look quite so half-dead," Ray said. "There's that."

Fraser's smile quivered for a moment, then vanished. "Good to hear."

Ray grinned at him and he could see Fraser trying to smile back. They regarded each other for several long moments; their breathing synchronized, Fraser's fists unclenched in his lap.

"Well, good," Ray said a bit weakly and turned back to the fire.

When the water was ready, he found that Fraser was asleep. Still sitting up, wet hair curling across his forehead, mouth a little open. So they were going to risk sleeping; he was kind of glad the decision had been made for him.

Ray wrapped a spare shirt around Fraser's wet head to keep him warm. If he looked remarkably like Ray's Aunt Verena in her rubber bathing turban, well, no one needed to know that. 

He doused the fire, then wedged himself against the rock next to Fraser and spread the sleeping bag over both their laps.

 

When they woke, Ray was slumped against Fraser, with Fraser's arm around his shoulders. 

"Standard --" Fraser started to say.

"Procedure, sure," Ray said, irritation flaring right back up to familiar levels. God forbid the man ever do something because _he_ wanted to, or admit as much. "Let's get going."

"Ray, I --"

"Yeah, yeah, you can't leave, heard it all," Ray said, kicking down the tarp that had formed the lean-to. "Gotta try, though, right?"

Fraser didn't say anything more about not being able to leave. For that, at least, Ray was grateful. Fraser helped him pack the gear, even tried to shoulder the bag before Ray stopped him.

"One of us just had amateur open-heart surgery, and it wasn't me," he said and grabbed back the pack.

"True enough," Fraser said. He stepped aside so Ray could go first. "Lead the way."

"I don't know where I'm going, Fraser!" Ray shoved past him anyway, hands jammed deep in his pockets.

"None of us do," Fraser replied, which was just the most obnoxiously calm observation Ray had heard in _at least_ fifteen hours. "Got to try, however, right?"

"Just keep moving," Ray told the sloping horizon.

"As you say," Fraser said.

They tramped in single file through hardpacked, unyielding snow for a long time.

A very long time.

"You got any idea what time it is?" Ray asked when they both stopped, as if silently agreeing it was time for a break.

Fraser bit his lip and gazed around up at the sky. "No," he said finally. "No clue."

"Shit," Ray said. Fraser could probably tell time twenty leagues under the sea, blindfolded and handcuffed. Then, probably too late, he added, "sorry."

"What for?"

Ray scratched his ear and looked away. "Probably killing you not to know. Figure that's like, whaddaycallit, your worst nightmare."

"Inability to ascertain local time," Fraser started, "is, while frustrating and potentially quite dangerous, far from my worst nightmare."

"Okay," Ray said. "Let's get going --"

"My worst nightmare," Fraser continued, as if Ray hadn't spoken, "already came true."

Ray glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. "Yeah?"

"You, Ray, I mean," Fraser said, and Ray started to smile, felt a lightness that was hot and elemental gathering force inside him. "When you left, that was --. DUCK!"

The swooping chorale currently overwhelming Ray, body and soul, smashed up against something black and oily, ten feet high and _growling_.

He didn't duck. He ran straight at it, whooping, and barreled into its midsection. The monster was as solid as he, foul-smelling and sticky, like blood-soaked fur and bare muscle. Jaws snapped above him and a long arm, tipped by diamond-bright claws, arched through the air.

He and the monster rolled, end over end, across the snow. Ray pounded at it, heard bones break and hoped like hell they weren't his own. 

"Stand down," Fraser called, as if the monster were just some miscreant jaywalking or hustling. "I said, stand --"

"What do I do?" Ray shouted as they rolled back toward Fraser. "How do I _kill_ it?"

If Fraser replied, Ray never heard. The monster was squeezing him suffocatingly-tight, and there were fangs closing around his head, and Ray got in one last good wiggle and flip and _kick_ , right in the monster's yowling, featureless, nightmare of a face.

 

Ray came to in fits and starts, jolts and jostles. He was bouncing, upside down, the snowy ground rising and falling before his eyes. 

Fraser had him slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He was trudging on, his deep, regular breathing and the crack-smoosh of his boots into the snow the only sound.

Ray tried to lift his head to look around, but there were no landmarks he could spot. Just grey flannel clouds massing low on the faraway horizon.

"Fraser, this better not be a rescue!"

"Oh, no, Ray, I wouldn't dream of that."

"Because I was sick and tired years ago of you saving my hide, plucking my pelt, whatever you want to call it. I'm no damsel, Fraser. I can take care of myself."

"I know you can." Fraser sounded as mild and patient and freakish as ever.

"So what gives?"

"Well," Fraser said, stopping and gently setting Ray down. He kept a steadying hand on Ray's shoulder, which Ray was about to shrug off, until he realized how dizzy he felt. "You were unconscious, Ray. It seemed best to lend a hand."

"Okay, good." Ray bobbed his head, his balance yawing; but for Fraser's grip, he'd have dropped ass over keyster. "So what is..." He scowled down at Fraser's gloved hand. "This?"

"You were in some distress, you see, so I was honor-bound to intervene and attempt, in my own way, to offer assistance."

Ray kicked a clump of snow. "You rescued me."

"No. I intervened --"

"-- in order to provide assistance! Goddamn it, Fraser, that's a rescue."

"Not in so many words."

"Syllogisms, Fraser."

"Semantics, Ray?"

"That, too, sure, okay." Ray hunched up his shoulders and blew on his hands. Fraser was staring at him. Not like you stare at a freak on the El, or at an ex who's being his typical unreasonable self. More watchful than that. Patient, wide-eyed, unblinking. All the fight, all the prickly snarling irritation, drained away and Ray grinned dopily and scratched the back of his neck. "Guess you haven't changed, huh?"

"On the contrary," Fraser said as he looked down at his hands. "I'd like to think that I have changed rather a lot." He looked back up to meet Ray's eyes. His gaze was so wide and frank, even a little scared (which was dumb and impossible, because nothing scared Fraser). "I missed you. And I'm sorry."

"Oh, huh." _So you've had an entire personality transplant?_ , the small, mean, bitter part of Ray wanted to say. He swallowed it down and bit the inside of his cheek. "Hey, well. Me, too. Obviously."

Fraser smiled, then looked past Ray's shoulder. "I think we're on the way out."

"You and me?" Ray scrunched up his face and rocked back on his heels. "I dunno. Thought we were doing okay --"

"Of _here_ , Ray. Together."

"Oh," Ray breathed. "Good. So you _can_ leave, then?"

"Thanks to you." 

"Thanks to me what?"

"That...thing," Fraser said, and winced as he paused. "That you killed. It seems to have been a border guard of some kind."

"You gonna arrest me for assassinating a metaphysical official?"

There it was, Fraser's quicksilver-fast wink and lift of the brow, an expression quieter and far more powerful than just about any smile known to man and beast. Ray grinned back, wide and free, and spread his arms. "I'm serious, I'd love to see you try."

"That shouldn't be necessary," Fraser replied. 

"Okay, well. You had your chance."

Fraser looked around again. "The sea is near. I take that as a good sign."

Ray swayed from foot to foot and banged his shoulder into Fraser's. "You do, huh?"

 

They slept on the shore that night. Fraser fished, Ray built the fire. It was the routine they'd established on their (ill-advised) adventure: Fraser got them fed, Ray kept them warm. 

"How's the, uh?" Ray pointed to the center of his own chest.

Fraser plucked his undershirt away and peeked downward. "Healing fast, I'd say."

"It hurt?"

"Oh, yes," Fraser replied. "Terribly."

Ray frowned and didn't know what to say. "Fraser --"

"It's all right," Fraser said and buttoned up his flannel shirt. "No worse than I deserve."

"Aw, come on, Fraser, that's --" He wasn't sure if he entirely disagreed, but who was he to decide, really? Maybe guilt and regret were purely personal, private affairs. "I dunno. Hope it stops bothering you soon."

Fraser nodded slowly. "Thank you, Ray."

"Yeah, well." Ray scrubbed his palms up and down his thighs. "You're welcome."

Fraser gave him a very small smile.

Ray glanced around the tiny camp that barely qualified for the name. "How do you want to do the, uh? Honors. Sleeping-wise, I mean."

"You should take the fire's lee side," Fraser said. He liked offering advice; he was on solid, reliable ground there. No emotions, no contradictions to be seen. "I'll find somewhere for myself."

"Fraser," Ray said and narrowed his eyes. "Don't be stupid."

He glared at Fraser until Fraser, finally, reluctantly, shrugged. "It isn't stupid to respect another's boundaries --"

"This is a fine time to start respecting boundaries, Fraser! Get with the program." Ray crabwalked around the fire until he could reach over and punch Fraser's shoulder. "Big spoon, we share the lee, just like old times."

"But --"

"I don't know how the weather works out here, up here, wherever the fuck we are, but I'm not taking chances. You want to know stupid? Stupid would be coming all this way just to die of metaphorical, metachemical, meta-whatever hypothermia on the way back."

"Indeed," Fraser replied. He glanced down at Ray's hand, still on his forearm. 

Ray started to pull his hand back, then stopped. All these little movements, nearly imperceptible shifts, towards each other, circling familiarity before retreating, were making him antsy.

"Hey," he said instead of moving away.

"Hello," Fraser said gently and Ray grinned again.

"Good old days, eh?" Fraser asked when they were wrapped in blankets, facing the fire. His voice warmed the back of Ray's neck.

"I didn't say 'good times'," Ray said. "Just old."

"Ah, of course."

They were quiet for a long time. Ray might have dozed; he couldn't be sure. Every so often, the embers would splutter and brighten when the wind kicked up; a moment later, Fraser's arm over Ray's side would tighten. Maybe that was reassurance, maybe just a natural reaction like the fire's. It was nice, whatever it was. 

 

Fraser was squatting at the edge of the water when Ray woke. He joined him, wool socks big on his feet, and poked at the thin little pieces of lacy ice caught in sand furrows and spun across pebbles. 

"Narwhal," Fraser said and sure enough, far out, there was a small hump and jutting spine, delicate against the bright dawn clouds.

"How're you feeling?" Ray asked.

A slight, faint grimace rippled over Fraser's face, but all he said was, "fine. Sore, perhaps."

"Fraser, don't --"

"I'm telling you the truth," he said, turning his head to meet Ray's eyes. 

"You're being a martyr, is what you're doing," Ray replied. He tugged on the hem of Fraser's undershirt. "Let me see."

"Ray, that's not necessary --" When Fraser blinked next, his eyes remained closed, his lashes thick on his cheek. He didn't move to stop Ray from lifting his shirt the rest of the way. 

The bandages were fairly clean, except for right above the wound. There, fresh blood blossomed. At least it was bright and red, not the sluggish, dark stuff of yesterday. Radiating out from under the bandages, the bruises were dark and kind of shiny.

"Christ, Fraser..." Ray didn't finish that statement, if there were anything else to say. Instead, he brushed his fingertips across the fresh blood and studied them.

"As I said, sore."

"I'll say. You slept on those bruises all night?"

"Yes." Fraser smiled, a bit, hesitantly. "I had a good distraction."

"Yeah, well." Ray ran his clean hand back and forth through his hair and checked on the narwhal. It was long gone and the horizon was that much brighter. "Ah. You do mean me, right? Not, like. The Aurora or bear mating songs or some such."

"Yes, Ray," Fraser said. Slowly, way too slowly for Ray's impatient, needful heart, he reached over bad cupped Ray's stubbly cheek. His thumb ticked back and forth over the rise of Ray's chin, then the far edge of his lower lip. His touch was warm and sure, as _full_ of something as his eyes, as his own parted lips and flickering tip of his tongue.

"I was so fucking mad at you," Ray said, even as he tipped his head into the curve of Fraser's palm.

The sea lapped , inches from their toes. The water was perfectly clear, silvery in the morning light. If you could fly, if you were Raven, you could probably spot Franklin and his ships easily.

"I know," Fraser said. "I was...irritated, myself."

Ray snorted with laughter. "Irritated, huh? Strong language, there, Fraser, might want to be careful."

"Mostly I was enraged, however," Fraser continued. His fingers curled behind Ray's ear, dug in to hold fast. "At myself. For failing you, for letting you get away."

"I'm my own person, Fraser, I go where I want."

"I know that," he said, and now his calm was sadder. Forlorn, really. "I love that."

"You what now?"

Fraser smiled, dimples going deep, eyes crinkling up. "I love that about you. I'm glad that's who you are."

"Yeah, yeah," Ray said, and bounced a little in the crouch. He wasn't all that antsy, but he needed to keep moving, a bit. "Otherwise you'd still be all but dead in that igloo."

"Yes."

Fraser never agreed so much, so readily and frequently. Every conversation they'd ever have, right from the start, in good times and bad, was composed of Fraser demurring and differing and contradicting Ray. Ray had come to believe that this counterpoint was the sole rhythm of their particular, very raucous duet.

"And I apologize for the rescue," Fraser said. "But you see, I couldn't leave you, not again."

Ray nodded quickly and nipped down on Fraser's thumb. "Apology accepted, exterminating circumstances and all. Just don't make a habit of it, okay?"

"It's a deal," Fraser said and slid his other hand under Ray's arm. They hopped to their feet. "Shall we?"

Ray checked the sea one last time. Maybe that was an ice berg out there, or another whale. A tardy explorer drifting into myth. He didn't know. He kicked a couple pebbles and turned, hand in Fraser's. "We shall."

Before them, Chicago was waking, as fitful and opinionated and surly as ever. Ray needed to get the coffee on.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes, with apologies, from Susanna Moodie's CanLit classic.
> 
> The information regarding same-sex immigration to Canada is accurate to the time this story is set, c.2000.


End file.
